


where our chances lie

by isloremipsumafterall



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, background Han/Leia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 04:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5771389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isloremipsumafterall/pseuds/isloremipsumafterall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in an alternate world Obi-Wan contacted Ahsoka and told her to look after Leia. Ahsoka ends up taking it a step further into training her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where our chances lie

**Author's Note:**

> for Jess, cause we're both a sucker for canon aus

_Feel the energy of the room around you._

 

Leia can practically hear her Master’s voice in her head, see Ahsoka’s brittle smile when Leia accomplishes the task.

 

Like she’s looking at Leia but seeing someone else.

 

She just wishes she knew if it was her mother or father that Ahsoka saw.

 

She takes a deep breath like Ahsoka’s taught her and lets her eyes linger on every occupant in the room, the Force flowing out around her to help her gauge emotions from the proposed trade treaty she’s brought the table.

 

To others it might be cheating. To Leia it’s a win stolen from the Empire.

 

~~

 

“Is Obi-Wan training my brother like this?” Leia asks one night, rocks floating in the air around her.

 

She hardly ever brings up that name, she doesn’t even know what her brother’s name is.

 

“I don’t know.” Ahsoka says like she does every time and rests one hand on Leia’s shoulder. “I haven’t spoken with him since I left.”

 

No one aside from her adopted father and mother and herself know that Ahsoka is here. She’s cut off contact from everyone in her life all to train Leia.

 

She just showed up one day when Leia was five, with an old recording in her hand from Obi-Wan and an apology on her lips.

 

_“She needs to be taught Bail. I’m the only one left who can help her.”_

 

The concentration on the rocks around her falter, they dip low but don’t yet hit the ground.

 

“Your mother always wished she could do this at points.” Ahsoka says and it snaps Leia away from her focus so quickly that some of the rocks turn to dust with her breaking thoughts.

 

“Tell me about her.” Leia pleads, looking up at Ahsoka with desperate eyes.

 

As Ahsoka sits down next to her and her voice falls over them both Leia closes her eyes and can almost picture Padme in her mind.

 

She wishes her brother could hear this too.

 

~~

 

“I’m coming with you.”

 

“It’s too dangerous.”

 

Leia holds her head high, full of determination and meets Ahsoka’s eyes.

 

“The Rebellion needs me.” She says without faltering.

 

Ahsoka can’t argue that.

 

~~

 

It’s like there’s a hole in her heart, pieces being pulled out without care of people she loved that are now gone like her planet.

 

She can still hear their screaming.

 

It’s the first time she wishes she didn’t have the Force, was blissfully unaware.

 

“That’s what we’ll do to your rebel friends.” Tarkin tells her and she has to bite down on her lip so she doesn’t reach out with the Force and shove him into a wall least she gives herself away.

 

Vaders eyes fall on her, she knows that even through the mask he wears. She refuses to look back and give him the satisfaction of seeing her fall.

 

~~

 

She has a brother.

 

It’s one thing to know that fact. It’s another to meet him.

 

“Luke.” The name feels right, like it belongs side by side with her.

 

His eyes widen with their own realization, “Leia?”

 

But the world is on fire from blasters around them and they don’t have time for this.

 

~~

 

Han Solo is an arrogant smuggler with a fast ship and even without the Force she could tell his thoughts.

 

She’s not sure she actually disapproves yet.

 

~~

 

The blade in her hand doesn’t feel right, she’s not meant to be a fighter like this.

 

Still when she turns it on it glows a brilliant white, the same colour as Ahsoka’s. The same as the snowy mountain tops of Alderaan.

 

“I’m sorry,” She whispers to the ghosts of the dead and prays that they can hear her.

 

~~

 

Luke goes to train with Yoda.

 

“You could come with me,” He tells her, eyes hopeful and she wonders if hers look like that too.

 

“I have a Master,” She rests her hand on his arm, knowing that the reminder of Obi-Wan’s death still hurts him.

 

“I’d like to meet her someday.”

 

“She’d like to meet you too.” Leia assures him and wishes that Ahsoka wasn’t off at the other Rebel base.

 

~~

 

“Tell me about my father.” She asks quietly, her clothes streaked with sweat from all the lightsaber training.

 

“He was a good Jedi.” Ahsoka replies, “He believed in me during a time when no one else would, I think he still did even after I walked away.”

 

She doesn’t say anything else, just reaches out to hug Ahsoka so she knows that someone still cares.

 

“Tell me about this Han.” Ahsoka teases when the moment’s broken and they’ve both stepped away.

 

Leia groans and goes back to her training.

 

~~

 

Bespin was a truly bad plan.

 

Han’s in so much pain and putting on a brave face just for her.

 

“I’m sorry,” She tells him, holding on to his hand like she’ll never let it go and if she had the choice she wouldn’t.

 

She can do something to stop this.

 

She can face Vader herself.

 

~~

 

It kills her to wait after Han’s been frozen to act.

 

To wait until Vader thinks he’s won and then summon her lightsaber from the shadows where her Master hides in waiting after she followed Leia to Cloud City under ‘a bad feeling’.

 

“Impossible.” There’s a crack in Vader’s metaphysical armour and she can sense it.

 

“Give him back to me.” She swings her saber to cut Chewie’s bonds and rushes towards where Boba Fett is carting off Han.

 

Vader’s surprise gives way and she feels the Force tighten around her as he throws her back against a wall.

 

“So this is how you’ve resisted us.”

 

She grits her teeth, “I’ve resisted you because you lack the competency of leadership.”

 

She can practically hear Ahsoka snicker at her rebuttal.

 

Her lightsaber sings in the air as she swings it down towards Vader only to be blocked by his own.

 

“I had not expected this but I can work you in to the plan.” Vader practically laughs in her head, clawing at her mind with the Force and she can feel herself break into a sweat to resist it and still hold her own against his saber.

 

Staring at the white light of her saber helps. It makes her think of home and all the people she’s lost and will continue to lose if she doesn’t stop things here and now.

 

It also makes her angry.

 

“Give in to that anger.” Vader picks up on it and she feels a slight panic.

 

She can see movement from the corner of her eyes, Ahsoka getting in to position and knows she just needs to buy her the time.

 

"I'm a princess from Alderaan and a Senator like my mother before me and a Jedi like my father before,” Her voice doesn’t waver in those truths she holds so dear to herself, “if I have anger then it is balanced with my compassion for those around me and never something to fall into as cowardly as you did."

 

Anger is how Sith can be born and she’ll never let it turn her.

 

Ahsoka jumps from the shadows, her lightsabers at the ready and Vader only just manages to catch the movement in time to block them after turning away from her and shoving her back once more with the Force.

 

“How.” Vader doesn’t truly ask, it’s a statement more than anything else.

 

Ahsoka merely grins, looks over at Leia and nods her head.

 

Together they fight, blades whirling around them and making Vader back around the room.

 

She’s vaguely aware of Chewie and Lando fighting the Stormtroopers and leaving Vader for them.

 

Suddenly Ahsoka stops, her eyes widening and she stares at Vader.

 

“How could you?” In that moment Ahsoka sounds so young, younger than Leia could ever picture her to be.

 

“You do not know the power of the dark side.”

 

Chewie emits a warning growl and Leia sense more Stormtroopers coming their way.

 

“We have to go.”

 

Without Han she realizes and bites back the tears.

 

She feels more than sees Vader turn to her and a stark realization hitting him.

 

“Padme.”

 

Her mother’s name is said so softly it’s almost swallowed in the rasp of the machine Vader uses to breath.

 

“No.” Her own horror mixes with Ahsoka and her heart speeds up.

 

Chewie grabs them both and pulls from the room.

 

~~

 

“He’s our father.” Luke croaks out, looking so much worse for wear and she’s just glad they rescued him in time.

 

“I know.” She says and presses close against him because she can feel his pain from that as much as she can feel her own.

 

As far as she’s concerned Luke and Ahsoka are the only family she has left.

 

~~

 

She throws herself into the plan to rescue Han; Ahsoka takes her place leading the Rebellion for the time.

 

Luke talks about getting their father back when all this is done.

 

She doesn’t tell him she thinks that impossible.

 

~~

 

“A Jedi hunh?” Han crosses his arms from where he sits in the medbay, “Any other secrets up your sleeve?”

 

“Plenty,” She smirks and drops her hand towards him where Han takes it automatically, “But you’ll just have to learn them as we go along.”

 

“I think I can manage that.” Han looks at her like he doesn’t want anything else.

 

She knows she looks back at him just the same.

 

~~

 

As soon as her father returns she knows and so does Ahsoka but the fight on Endor rages on.

 

As soon as he dies she feels that too and welcomes Luke back with open arms.

 

Later that night she can sense movement in the Force and nearly stumbles when she sees Ahsoka sitting in a clearing and hears a quiet hesitant, “Master?”

 

She turns away to give Ahsoka the closure she needs.

 

~~

 

“It’s okay,” Ahsoka tells her, completely understanding of why she isn’t ready to talk to her father yet.

 

Someday perhaps but not now.

 

Instead she finds Luke and gets time off for the both of them, kissing Han a quick goodbye, and flies them to a planet that neither of them have been before.

 

“What are we doing here?” Luke asks as they step out and look at the ocean view.

 

Leia smiles at him and just signals him to follow her, down the halls of the palace until they reach the hall of Queens.

 

The painting of Padme Amidala is both familiar and unfamiliar to her in a way that makes her heart hurt.

 

“Leia?”

 

She takes a seat and he follows suit, sitting next to her.

 

“Let me tell you about our mother.”


End file.
